After the Story Games

With the One-Word-Story-Game and the One-Phrase-Story-Game, my purpose was to point out how powerless we feel when we can’t control language. I spoke about different aspects of language as power and why we feel more in control when we have a whole phrase to ourselves, rather than a single word.

Then, I moved to the third group and whispered to them, “I want you to explain ‘triangle’ without using the words ‘sides’ and ‘three’.”

The students thought about it for a while. Finally, they said, “This is a closed figure, closely associated with Bermuda.”

Of course it was clear enough. The other students got it very easily.

I smiled. “Wouldn’t it have been easier to draw it?”

They hadn’t thought of it. And thinking about why they hadn’t thought of it perhaps brings us to what Theory of Knowledge tries to do.